The lovely Renault Kwid Climber concept showcased at the 2016 Auto Expo was all about drama. With its exaggerated wheel arches and striking electric blue trim bordering the black cladding and lining the scoops inside the large, sporty alloys, it got a lot of us rather excited.

Missing are the electric blue highlights from the Kwid Climber concept seen at the 2016 Auto Expo

And now, after more than a year, what’s launched in the market is a thoroughly watered down version of the car we saw at Greater Noida. While the showcased car was dressed in Renault’s hugely popular burnt orange with electric blue accents, the production version gets the colour scheme in reverse. Except what Renault India insists on calling an “electric blue” is actually a very septic cobalt. The other colour options are Outback Bronze and Planet Grey – in other words, brown and the tone used to denote despair in French cinema. And the orange accents on the outside rear view mirrors, roof rails, terrain protectors and wheel arches are rather tame looking too – in comparison to the wild metallic blue on the concept.

More “vibrant” orange on the Renault Kwid Climber terrain protector

Powering the Renault Kwid Climber is the 68PS making 1.0-litre SCe engine, mated to either a manual gear box or a 5-speed AMT that Renault calls the Easy R. The mellow “vibrant” orange accents make their way to the cabin too – on the door trim, lining elements on the dashboard, on the upholstery. Even the steering wheel is signature of the Climber variant – with an orange insignia inscribed on the bottom spoke.

Note the chunkier steering wheel inside the new Renault Kwid Climber

Standard equipment includes the 7-inch touchscreen MediaNAV system, all-digital instrumentation, one-touch lane change indicator, radio speed dependent volume control and pro-sense seat belt pretensioners with load limiters. Pretty impressive, right? The production-spec Climber may be a little too wholesome and watered down for our tastes, but hey, it’s the best we can get for now. We’ll just have to wait for the six interns at Renault’s design studio in Chennai to come up with something production cars that are just as radical and groundbreaking as their first impressions.

The Renault Kwid Climber is priced at Rs 4.3 lakh for the manual transmission variant and at Rs 4.6 lakh for the AMT variant.